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Antonio Jackson
Variety Editor
Akira Toriyama, one of Japan’s top comic book authors, passed away on March 1. An official statement from his manga and design companies, Bird Studio and Capsule Corporation Tokyo, was released a week later on March 8. He was 68 years old.
According to the statement, the cause of his death was acute subdural hematoma, which is a condition where blood builds up between the skull and brain.
Toriyama’s body of work is easily recognized by long-time fans and non-manga readers alike, in his home country of Japan and further, having massive influence on future generations of manga artists and cartoonists after him.
Akira Toriyama was born on April 5, 1955 in Kiyosu, Japan. According to the New York Times, he would study design at a technology and engineering high school in Aichi Prefecture. After graduating, he worked as a designer for an advertising company in Nagoya. He would soon leave his job at 23 and started drawing manga.
Toriyama’s first body of work was “Wonder Island”, an action-adventure comic series that was published in 1978.
Toriyama would gain popularity and be considered as an established manga author of the series “Dr. Slump”. The science fiction manga follows the antics of a young android girl with superhuman strength. It was soon adapted into an anime series for television.
His best-known series is none other than “Dragon Ball”. “Dragon Ball” follows the adventures of a young boy named Son Goku who takes on the journey to collect the seven magical Dragon Balls that summon a mystical dragon that grants any wish.
According to Titlemax, “Dragon Ball” has made over $24 billion, making it the 15th highest grossing media franchise of all time through merchandise sales, video games, and the box office.
Throughout his career, Toriyama purely wanted to entertain his audience through his manga. In an interview with the Asahi Shimbun, he stated, “I believe the mission of my manga is to be entertainment exclusively. I even feel that as long as I can allow [the reader] to have an enjoyable time once, I don’t mind if nothing remains, so I’ve never deliberately drawn it with the intention of sending a message. Messages and moving scenes are things that other manga artists already draw.”
He then gives his opinion on how “Dragon Ball” and more manga were able to reach a worldwide audience beyond Japan, saying it was bound to happen due to work that was put into the medium.
“Manga is a world where connections and large sums of money get you nowhere, and you compete solely on your abilities. I believe the works of various genres that have been accepted by the discerning eyes of Japan’s manga and anime fans are at an extremely high level as works of entertainment for the masses. The fact that those chosen works are being enjoyed all over the world may, in a sense, be only natural,” Toriyama stated.
Toriyama was a generational talent that inspired countless artists after him. His work will forever be immortalized through his own and other series.
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